


Leak

by Davechicken



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 20:59:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9022990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: Kylo is sent to plug a leak.





	

He’s been sent here to plug a gap. A very serious gap, one with intel leaking from so far within the organisation that they’ve covered their tracks almost imperceptibly. Kylo doesn’t like being considered a saber to be wielded like any old instrument, but... this is serious. This is as serious as it gets. 

Kylo’s pilot lands the small ship far from the meeting site, and the Knight slides through the crowded marketplace in the seedier (if it’s possible to be seedier) end of Nar Shaddaa, keeping eyes from staying on him too long with an aura of ‘not the man you’re looking for’.

He’s dressed in black, but not his usual attire. A hood lifted, a scarf covering his mouth and nose. Only his eyes and the whisps of hair tumbling out from the hood betray him, and no one looks long enough to notice. 

Into the small watering hole, and he waves the wait-droid down, purchasing a drink he has no intention of consuming.

None of the patrons notice him. He makes sure of that. He sets their eyes gliding across him like he’s ice and they’re boots, and he _listens_.

He knows they’re likely to be talking in indistinct ways, concealing their plans. No one turns up and says: “Oh hi, informant, you got some good intel on the First Order for me today? How are your space cacti doing?”

(Not and means it.)

But he did expect to need to work a little harder than _this_. Instead of having to sift through thoughts and wafts of dialogue, a voice that he’d have recognised even _without_ hearing it back on Jakku slices into his spinal column and cuts all his tendons. He sits - immobilised - as the man he’d once loved says:

“I thought you weren’t going to show.”  


“Well, I had to make sure I wasn’t followed.”  


Kylo drops his drink. He knows both of them. He knows both, because one he grew up with and once swore he’d never not be friends with; and the other has been the bane of his life for five whole years and _absolutely cannot possibly be the spy_.

But why else would Commander Dameron be talking to General Hux? Why?

“And?”  


“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”  


Kylo listens, but frankly he doesn’t need to. He’s been sent here to either retrieve or execute them both, and he’s pretty sure he’s incapable of either order. It had been hard enough when faced with an overly-swaggering pilot who shot at him in front of everyone. His choice had been ‘capture’ or ‘kill’, and ‘capture’ was one up from kill because _you didn’t die right away_.

(In fact, you somehow miraculously escaped when a rebellious trooper came knocking.)

But now... this transgression is too much. It’s something he _knows_ the Leader will weigh in on, and there will be no escape for either of them. 

Kylo has no huge love for Hux. He’s... he’s always struck him as overly-pedantic, Force-hating and mindless. He’d thought he’d be the _last_ person to rebel, or resist, and maybe that’s the point. How he’s managed to shield this double life from Kylo all this time... now he’s rethinking everything he knows.

Is it a trap, on Hux’s part? It’s too risky. Why would you send such a high ranking officer? And why wouldn’t Snoke know about it? Is it a test? Or is this... genuine? 

If he goes back empty-handed, or lies and says it’s sorted... then the next leak will be on his shoulders. If not him, then another Knight will end them, and... he just... he can’t. He can’t let this be the end of things. He can’t let what once was the deepest love he’d known turn into death.

Kylo rises, and then his eyes meet Poe’s. He should wipe him. Should... torture out whatever intel has been shared, and send Poe back confused, but empty-handed. Should rout out any and all sacrilegious and insincere thought from Hux’s head, and cow him into the mindless cannon-fodder most of the Order’s soldiers are.

That was what he _should_ do. But instead, he sees recognition and love and hurt and sorrow and betrayal and hope. 

Hux turns, too, and his hand reaches for his blaster. It’s useless, but Poe stops his wrist all the same.

“Ben?”  


He shakes his head. That is not who he is. Not any more.

“He goes by--”  


“I know,” Poe says, to Hux. “I thought I saw someone else.”  


Which cuts him, all the way to the quick. Someone else. Someone he used to be. He wavers, and the wait-droid bumps into him. He should kill everyone here, and make a statement with their blood over the walls.

“Ren... Kylo...” Hux tries, clearly shaken. “Do you... want to join us?”  


“He knows,” Kylo says. “He knows you’re here.”  


“Then we’re gonna need your help,” Poe replies, more breezily than anyone has a right to. “You think you can do that?”  


“I don’t know,” is his honest response.  


“You’re going to need to make your mind up, and quickly.” Hux’s whole world just fell apart, didn’t it? He’s been discovered as a traitor to his sworn ideology. His whole life’s work.   


“Can you come with us first, and decide later?” Poe asks.  


Hux walks over, and Kylo tenses. Tenses, until he reaches for a small device on Kylo’s belt, the one he’d forgotten was there. The tracker.

Hux places it down on the table, and then looks up. “We have to go. _Now_. If we all want to live.”

Kylo wants to live. He does. He wants _them_ to live, too, but that’s one thing and _joining the Resistance is a whole other thing_.

One moment at a time.

“Yes,” he says, and braces himself for what comes next.  



End file.
